A Time to Keep
by Her Voice
Summary: Darien lost everything on a single night. But when he's choses to go to Colorado to start over, he didn't expect her to change his life. DarienSerena pairing.


Alright, so I know I've got a story in the process. But I had a really interesting dream like this, and I wanted to see how it panned out on paper. So I'm putting "Guardian Angel" on hold. I'll work on alternating chapters, but I really wanted to get this out. And I'm watching _Grey's Anatomy_, so it's kind of my inspiration at the moment. I promise I will work on both, but college is pulling me in two directions, so you will have to be patient. I hope you like this a lot. I'm writing it from Darien's point of view. The, whole story will be that way unless I feel that he isn't a good enough narrator for a chapter or two. So enjoy!

A Time to Keep

_Empty Chairs and Empty Tables_

By: Meghan McLaws

_That I live and you are gone.  
There's a grief that can't be spoken.  
There's a pain goes on and on. _

Phantom faces at the window.  
Phantom shadows on the floor.  
Empty chairs at empty tables  
Where my friends will meet no more.

- "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" Les Miserables

Even today, I still don't understand exactly how it happened. Or why, for that matter. All I know is that it did happen, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I tend to do that sometimes, so you'll have to forgive me for that flaw. I'm sure as the story goes on, you will realize that I have more than a few of those. I guess I should start at the beginning, since the story won't make a whit of sense if I start anyplace else.

I was born in Greenwich Village, New York, really close to Manhattan. Center of the world, if you ask me. I grew up watching the ball drop in Times Square, taking long strolls in Central Park, and going to shows on Broadway. I always loved going to shows. I think this is why I've always been so interested in musical theatre. I know what you're thinking. Gay, right? It just so happens that I love theatre because my mom was a thespian when she first moved to New York. You've most likely never heard of her unless you know a lot about theatre. To those in the field, she was quite famous and always in high demand.

My mom and father were quite a pair. My father was a huge business tycoon. He would travel all over the world, though he always tried to make it home at the end of the week. He may not have been around all the time, but he was home often enough to throw a baseball around with me. Once, he was even around long enough to coach my pee-wee football team. Of course, I don't blame him for never being around. He was making a living; keeping the business in the family. See, his father passed it to him, and so on and so forth. He was thinking about selling it or merging it with another company, though. He wasn't sure if I would grow up to be the kind of man willing to run a multi-billion dollar company, so he was taking the proper precautions to secure the future of his business.

No, as a child, I was happiest when drawing, listening to music, or even writing, even though I wasn't that great at it. I didn't care for math when I was younger. Perhaps that's what led my father to believe that I wouldn't want to be a businessman when I grew up. Another flaw, you see. But once again, I digress It was my mom who raised me She was my best friend, my inspiration. She always seemed to know what was getting me down. Without even asking, she would bring me something new to draw or hug me if I was just feeling down. She knew, without a doubt, what would make me happy. If it was in her power, she would do whatever it took to make the impossible happen so that I could be happy again.

I think that one of the biggest events destined to shape my life was when I saw my first musical. I know it sounds weird. A boy going to see a Broadway show of his own free will? Was I really ready to suffer the teasing that such an offense would endure? All the other first grade boys said it was a girly thing, and if I liked it, I was a girl, too. But like I said, my mom was into them. Since she was always doing things to make me happy, I figured that I'd better do this for her, since she was all dressed up and what not. I begrudgingly put on my little tie that matched the suit that made me feel like my father: smart and powerful. We went to the Majestic Theatre to see _Phantom of the Opera_. Now, if you've seen it, congratulations. It really is a good musical, though in retrospect, it wasn't one of the best to see for a first-timer. It gave me a slightly distorted view of good music. I was so impressionable, and hooked from the first bars of the overture. Have you ever heard it? The sound of the organ seconds after the auctioneer says "Gentlemen!" is fantastic. It isn't Webber's best show. _Evita,_ for example, has a slightly stronger melodic line than _Phantom. _Of course, the story is a bit more believable than _Cats_. Besides, Webber doesn't have anything on Claude-Michel Schönberg as far as I'm concerned. Just listen to the music from _Les Miserables_ or _Miss Saigon_ and I think you'll be able to see what I mean. Excuse my tangent. I tend to digress a lot. Anyhow, I saw the show three more times between the age of six and sixteen. Each time, it gained a little more splendor. As a kid, I refused to watch the chandelier fall, but when I finally got the nerve to see it, I was blown away. Pretty advanced stunt for a show made in 1988, don't you think? And "Masquerade?" My favorite number, hands down. Because of these things, the show will always hold a special place in my heart.

Over the years, I've seen more musicals than I can count:_ The Boy from Oz, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, Into the Woods, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Wicked, Rent, Evita, The Producers_… you name it, we saw it. I couldn't believe the number of musicals that I had seen before I'd learned how to shoot hoops or write my name in something besides capital letters. I had memorized more music lyrics than I had baseball stats. Because of this, it's easy to see why a lot of people may think that I'm gay. I'm really not, though. Promise. Although, I _do_ like dressing well. Of course, you don't need to be gay in order to dress well! On top of that, I always look as though I know what I'm doing.

Maybe that's why I thought I had everything planned out in life.

I knew at the age of seven that I wanted to be a doctor. I don't really remember the exact moment that I decided this, of course. I think that I was watching TV and decided that being a surgeon sounded cool. Just the idea of cutting people open appealed to me. Sick and twisted, I know. Once again, it's one of those little flaws I was talking about earlier. I began reading medical books as soon as I learned how to read and was old enough to have my own library card. By the time I was 14, I'd read all the medical books in the public library **and** the ones at the local college. I loved reading about medicine and I knew that no matter what, I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up. It was one of the only things that I could proclaim with certainty.

Well, a surgeon or a Broadway director.

But again, I digress.

I began to look at colleges when I was 15. I knew I wanted to go to a Big East Coast school, possibly even Ivy League, if I could manage it. Yale had its appeal. So did Dartmouth. Then, of course, there was John Hopkins. My father could pay for it, but I wanted to get in on my own. I didn't want to get in because I had "connections." I studied, hard: I got straight A's, worked 15 hours a week, and still managed to participate in school clubs. Did I mention that in addition to all of that, I was on Student Council and a shoo-in for Student Body President? Well, I was. I was pretty damn good at my job, if I do say so myself. My classmates both admired me and liked what I represented. I was carefree, strong, good looking, and heck, I was super-friendly. All in all, my high school years were pretty great.

I didn't 'date' per se, but I did make sure that I had a girl to go to every dance with. It was always a different girl, too. I prided myself on making sure I chose girls who would most likely not have a date. It wasn't because I felt sad for those girls, and no, I wasn't playing pranks on them either. These girls were sweet and nice, just misunderstood. Heck, I remember this one time when I took out a girl who was really into the Air Force JROTC thing. Uniform, PT, the whole nine yards. We went to the dance and no one even recognized her out of uniform. She seemed like a real hard ass most of the time, but let me tell you, Evon was one of the nicest girls I ever met.

But she wasn't "the one."

You know, the kind of girl where you get stars in your eyes, see fireworks when you kiss and the moment makes you want to burst into song. That's what I mean by "the one"

Obviously, I wasn't going to settle for anything less. Once again, I can blame my mother for this.

Growing up, she told me that there was one person out there for me, one soul mate that would complete me in a way that no one else ever could. My mother always told me that I should 'save myself' for that person because nothing would be more special to "the one" than telling them that you had been waiting for them. Because of this, I never caved in to locker room talk. I didn't sleep with the first girl who turned me on, like most kids my age did. I was a gentleman, one of the few left in the world, and I stayed celibate.

Sure, I took a lot of crap for it, but I was proud of my decision. Who cared about what other people thought about my own personal choice? It was _my_ choice, and I stood by it.

It was an easy thing to do, really. I never let myself get into the type of situation where I might be tested in the first place. Heck, I had never really even kissed a girl beyond pecking her on the lips. I was still waiting for that mind-blowing movie kiss.

If you haven't been able to tell from the past few sentences, I'm a romantic. Hopelessly so. Devastatingly so. When I took out a girl for a dance, she got the works. Dinner, roses, limo…you name it. But there was never that wow-kiss at the end of the night. Like sex, I was saving that wow-kiss for 'the one'…but I was beginning to think that I was never going to find it.

Then again, I was still a kid. Sixteen is young, and I wasn't sure that I was all that ready to find "the one" yet. I was busy with the stage, the football field, and the classroom. A part of me wasn't too worried about it. I would find her when I was ready.

So instead, I immersed myself in school and did what I knew best: stage work. I took Advanced Theatre, was in a local improvisation group and took 500 level classes at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. I even tried out for a few community theatre productions. Believe it or not, I even managed to get a few parts. All minor, of course, but they were still great experiences for me. I was in _The Wizard of Oz_, which was amazing. I loved playing an Ozian. I did one more show, too, but it was when I was young, so I don't really remember it too well.

Okay, so this next section is really hard to talk about now that I've gotten all of the fluff out of the way. It's hard to revisit the stuff that I really wish I didn't have to remember, but I will. It's what made me who I am today.

I don't really remember every little detail about 'that night,' but I do remember some weird things such as the fact that my mom was wearing this great black dress with these little blue beads around the collar. She was wearing a pretty blue sapphire around her neck that had been a gift from my father. On top of that, it had been my father's first time going to a show with us in a few years. We were on our way to see _The Lion King_ for the second time. After that, all that I can remember is a feeling of intense pain in my legs and face.

Okay, so now for what I was told after the fact.

Supposedly, we were driving to the theatre, which in itself was odd for us because we always took cabs in the city. For some reason, my father had insisted on driving that night. I remember that we had eaten dinner beforehand. On the way to the theatre, however, we were hit head-on by another car. The driver had been drunk and not even paying attention to the road. My father had been looking at my mom in the mirror. I remember that much, at least. From there, my father was ejected, and I was pinned in the front seat. He died almost instantaneously. He hit his head on the concrete, and an aneurysm in his head ruptured. He would have most likely died from it anyway, but the knock on his head was enough to take him instantly. He bled out within five minutes of the accident.

My mom, on the other hand, was a completely different story. She hit her head but didn't seem to suffer that much damage anyplace else on her body. It took her almost a week to die. During her first two days at the hospital, they discovered internal bleeding while she was in a coma. They were able to stop it in time, but they overlooked internal bruising to her heart. By the time it was discovered, the damage was too intense. She died while attached to a morphine drip.

I wasn't at her side when she died. I was in my own coma that lasted for two weeks. My legs were shattered and I ended up with seven rods in my legs. I also had a really big piece of glass stuck in my face that ended up leaving a scar from my cheek to almost the corner of my lip. When I came to, I was told that in the course of five days, I had lost my entire family. My whole life changed in an instant. On a night where we were finally doing something together as a family, my parents died and left me behind. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to my mom.

I think that's what hurt the most. I was asleep when she died. I didn't even get to tell her how wonderful she was, or how great she always managed to make made me feel or how much of a difference she had made in my life. I can't even remember the last time I told her that I loved her. Pathetic, huh? If I'd known that night would be the last time that I would ever speak to her, I would have made more of it, you know? I never knew that the end would really be _the end._

I didn't even get to go to the funerals. I was in surgery for my father's and in ICU during my mom's. I was told that they were beautiful, though for a long time, I was unable to recover from the initial shock. They had me on drugs for a while, but eventually I had to come off of them. I had to learn to start feeling again.

Once I was able to, I had to learn how to walk again. I'm not going to lie about the whole experience. It hurt. There were days when I didn't even want to get out of bed. What would have been the point? Both of my parents were dead. In the blink of an eye, I had become an orphan. It was hard to deal with. And having to learn how to walk again on top of that? It was almost too much for me to handle.

In times of tragedy, you learn who your true friends are. Oh sure, a lot of people came to see me in the beginning, but during my 15-week stay at the hospital, the number dropped down to 3 people. Andrew, who had been one of my buddies from an improvisation group, came to see me three times a week. Clare, who was in student council with me, brought me my homework once a week. And Mr. Henderson, my school's principal, also continued to stop by every so often. It was nice to see them, but their visits always made me sad because it was hard to remember what I had lost.

For a while, I was on heavy anti-depressants designed to make me feel better. I admit that I liked how they made me feel. I knew my parents were dead, but I didn't care. It was nice, I think. Of course, every so often I would still break down and refuse to work with the doctors. I didn't want to learn to walk all over again.

I think that I finally turned around after my father's associate, John Parkers, came to visit. He'd stopped by my house to pick up a few things I'd asked him to bring to the hospital. He'd also brought my father's will. For some reason, my father had chosen to videotape it. I watched it with John, and I couldn't help but cry. My mother was on the tape too, so seeing them both as though they were still alive and well in the next room was difficult for me. I wanted to die with them, but my mom talked to me alone. She told me that I was perfect, no matter what. And even if they were gone, I had to live. It was at that moment that I decided to do just that.

I worked hard. I pushed myself until I was crying and in so much pain that I wanted to die. But in the end, I learned to walk again, first with crutches, then with a cane. It really wasn't so bad once I built up my strength again. And once I did, I was released from the hospital.

I didn't have anywhere to go, though. I cleaned out my room and met with lawyer after lawyer, trying to get saving bonds and accounts set up. It took a few weeks. For a while, I was allowed to stay at my house, but since I was a minor, I was now a ward of the state. My social worker, Kathy, was really nice. She checked on me every day, which was the only reason that I was allowed to stay at home alone.

Eventually, I had to move out and be placed in foster care.

The New York foster system was full, and living in a halfway house wasn't my idea of a new life. I didn't want this, but I didn't have a choice. Eventually, I moved into a home with 24 other older teens in the foster system. To say I didn't fit in would be an understatement. Most of these kids were orphans due to shootings or other urban crimes. Because I had been the victim of an accident, I wasn't the same as them. I was teased and tormented because I had a ton of money to my name, but no use for it.

Due to all of this, when the offer came for me to go to a different state, I figured that I might as well take it. It was too hard being stuck in New York when my parents were no longer there. I didn't like the limelight that the news had brought, nor did I like the way that I was treated. It was as though I were nothing more than a number, a set of digits that the system didn't care about.

I heard about a family in Colorado that fostered older kids. It wasn't adoption, but it was someplace for them to be until they were old enough to live on their own. It was hard work, but it was something to take my mind off this hell that I'd been thrown into for the past months since my parents had died. It was different, it was new and best of all, it wasn't New York. I wanted _that_ more then anything, so I took Kathy's advice and met the family.

I met Elizabeth and Derek Carter in Central Park, where they offered me a chance to stay with them and work at their ranch, which was located in Black Forest, Colorado. Upon entering the state, I noticed that it wasn't anything like New York, since instead of population, the signs mentioned elevation. It was all blue skies, hard work, and few people. In my mind, it was just what I needed. The Carters' took in older foster children, ones who didn't have any family. It was a place to stay, a place to eat. But more than that, it was a place to belong. It was my own room and a place to find out what I wanted to do now. Was surgery still what I wanted? Did I still want to have a career in medicine after everything that I'd been through?

I wasn't sure anymore. But Colorado seemed like a perfect place to sort it all out in my mind.

I packed my belongings and drove across country to live with them. You could tell they'd done this before. They didn't talk about what had happened with the accident. They just about things that I liked to do. They even let me plug my iPod into the radio jack, even though most of my music consisted of musicals and a few alternative bands. They were nice people. I learned that they had a biological daughter, younger than me, by a year. She'd been their one and only. Liz told me that her appendix had burst while she was giving birth. The fluids destroyed her reproductive system. Liz had actually been an orphan too, and her foster parents had done the same thing for her that she was doing for others now. They had seven other foster kids currently, but had moved forty-three others through the system. Most had been only a year or two away from becoming adults anyway, so they didn't mind. In their 23 years of marriage, they thought it was an impressive number.

And so did I, to be honest. They had to be doing something right. I mean, to keep this many kids with them for so long? It seemed almost impossible.

But I was up for it all: The long days, hard work, and something different. Anything to get my mind off of the accident.

Or at least, I thought I was.


End file.
